Some Lupine news

Some Lupine news

The boss of Lupine ("Wolf" in the forum) made some statements in the official forum:

- New lamps (improvement of the current models, as I understand it) with 20-30% more output compared to the current model, a new Betty torchlight ("BTL 2"), batteries with more capacity, option to mount all new lamps on a Go Pro mount.? Thema anzeigen - Neues von Lupine

- Option for an upgrade for the current Betty R; for the upgrade the lamp must be sent to the factory. Said to be cheaper than to manufacture and sell DIY upgrade kits. New Betty R will light slightly less wide and with a stronger central spot.? Thema anzeigen - Neues von Lupine

A mount for the Betty R remote (kind of wristband) will be enclosed with these lamps in future (literally: "soon").
Lupine will send these mounts for free to all existing Betty R users on request, a page will be installed for "orders" (literally: "in some weeks"). Of course I can't answer for the US and the like, maybe this will be organized over Gretna etc..? Thema anzeigen - Neuer Halter für den Betty R Funk

I would love to see a narrower beam available on the Betty R, I personally find my old Betty (2600lm) on the handlebars overpowers the Betty R as a helmet light unless I run the bar mounted light at 38% or 50% max. It is then that the weight of the 3600lm Betty R has an impact upon the trails

I would love to see a narrower beam available on the Betty R, I personally find my old Betty (2600lm) on the handlebars overpowers the Betty R as a helmet light unless I run the bar mounted light at 38% or 50% max. It is then that the weight of the 3600lm Betty R has an impact upon the trails

Why don't you use the New Bety on the bars and the old one on the helmet?
How are you aiming your helmet light? I'm asking because a spot will always "overpower" a wide lens because the concentrated light but I find it very distracting and also mess with my night vision by dilating my pupils even more and then when I look away I perceive less light in fornt of me.
Try to aim your helmet light to the horizon and use it only to see around the corners and far down the trail, not in front of you (try to "ride" with the handlebar light; it will give you a better depth perception ;-) )
Cheers

Why don't you use the New Bety on the bars and the old one on the helmet?
How are you aiming your helmet light? I'm asking because a spot will always "overpower" a wide lens because the concentrated light but I find it very distracting and also mess with my night vision by dilating my pupils even more and then when I look away I perceive less light in fornt of me.
Try to aim your helmet light to the horizon and use it only to see around the corners and far down the trail, not in front of you (try to "ride" with the handlebar light; it will give you a better depth perception ;-) )
Cheers

The benefit of the Betty R is the remote to change light intensity without taking hands off the handlebars, having the lights the other way round defeats the purpose of having the remote.

I recently had 10+ hrs, in a solo 24hr race to experiment with balance between the light combos to gain the best balance between light intensity, light throw, spread and balance of light that provides ample light that enables shadows on the trail to exist.

Results found betty on bars running at 58% and Betty R on helmet toggling btw 100% for downhill and really fast single track, then idling at around 40% max for the rest of the time. The joy of lupine light sets is the ability to run them at 1/2 power and still have more than enough light for the majority of the time.

Back to my original preference a slightly narrower beam would enable a greater throw of light (30-40mts) while running the light at a lesser intensity.

The benefit of the Betty R is the remote to change light intensity without taking hands off the handlebars, having the lights the other way round defeats the purpose of having the remote.

I recently had 10+ hrs, in a solo 24hr race to experiment with balance between the light combos to gain the best balance between light intensity, light throw, spread and balance of light that provides ample light that enables shadows on the trail to exist.

Results found betty on bars running at 58% and Betty R on helmet toggling btw 100% for downhill and really fast single track, then idling at around 40% max for the rest of the time. The joy of lupine light sets is the ability to run them at 1/2 power and still have more than enough light for the majority of the time.

Back to my original preference a slightly narrower beam would enable a greater throw of light (30-40mts) while running the light at a lesser intensity.

Nothing new yet I take it? I would be nice if Lupine wasn't so cryptic in their updates about product development. And include the info in other languages since much of their business isn't just Germany. Guess I will just have to wait some more.

Some news:
- As written before, improvement of the current models with more output, Piko is mentioned with 1200 lumen.
- As mentioned, new Betty torchlight (BTL2) with more output, central LED will be red (??, whatever ...)
- And, hear hear, a backlight coming this fall, "waterproof", working with ordinary batteries AND with accumulator, aluminium housing, price already known 77 Euros, separated from front lamp/accumulator, described as "very bright, but nothing excessive, nothing of the Dinotte backlight sort"

Personally would not use a wrist mounted remote for the Betty R. That would require removing one (or both!) hands from the handlebars to use. I find the bar mounted (Peppi V4 mount) remote very convenient, easy to use, and safe.

Personally would not use a wrist mounted remote for the Betty R. That would require removing one (or both!) hands from the handlebars to use. I find the bar mounted (Peppi V4 mount) remote very convenient, easy to use, and safe.

It seems to me that best use for the wrist mounted remote would be for caving,night skiing, or hiking. I think they have it right as is with the Peppi for biking.

A bit of news I would liked to have seen from Lupine is the evolution of the Betty-R's remote. One that would have the output indicator led's incorporated into the remote itself so as to know for sure what output level one was using while the lamp head was been used on the helmet. That's if the technology is even available.

The announced Lupine backlight will run with a CR123A battery. Will run with ordinary batteries as well as with a rechargeable accumulator of same size. Backlight will be shipped with a rechargeable accumulator.
Changing the battery said to be very easy, the backlight comes with several "reasonable" modes and with a capacity indicator, backlight is said to have an advanced efficiency unklike most ordinary backlights losing/wasting half the energy in resistors etc.. A mount to fix the backlight directly on the saddle is planned, but will come "later". Charging will work over USB.

A german guy of a torchlight forum obviously keeps a prototype of the new Betty torchlight BTL2 in his hands.
According to his postings, the new Betty torchlight will put out 4500 real lumen, weight less than 300 grams and the central red (??) led will be an XP-E, the others XM-L2. Running with 45W.

Other informantion is the new Wilma will have an output of 2800 lumen, and the Piko with 1200 lumen will run with XM-L2 leds.

a 1200 lumen Piko would be a fantastic helmet light to use with the 2400 Wilma. I've been using my old 1500 lumen Wilma. Too, two 1200 Pikos - one of the bar, one on the helmet would also be a fantastic combo. 2400 lumens (i.e. 2 car headlight equivalent) in a very small and light package.

a 1200 lumen Piko would be a fantastic helmet light to use with the 2400 Wilma. I've been using my old 1500 lumen Wilma. Too, two 1200 Pikos - one of the bar, one on the helmet would also be a fantastic combo. 2400 lumens (i.e. 2 car headlight equivalent) in a very small and light package.

J.

I hope they have good heat management for sure. the 900 piko got damn hot in a matter of a minute or two when stopped. You HAVE to keep moving with these beasts.

According to the Lupine boss all the new gear will be available/deliverable in the Lupine shop starting from the "Outdoor" fair in Ludwigshafen (Germany) taking place 11.-14. Juli. Up to the new Betty R which needs some molding machine not yet delivered, so it will take "some weeks" more. BTL 2 announced "soon".
New Piko is announced to be available starting from "this week".â€¢ Thema anzeigen - Neuigkeiten im Shop

Just watched a Lupine promotional video and it looks like the new Betty R will have 4500 ansi lumens with three battery options. Betty R-7 with 6.6Ah/ Betty R-10 with 9.9Ah/ Betty R-14 with 13.2Ah. Looks like Lupine has put higher capacity cells in their smart core battery's this year. Also the new Wilma will have 2800 lumen output , and as already mentioned the Piko with 1200 lumens. Cheers!!!

Quiggs1974 I read somewhere the new Betty torch was running 45 watt max output to get the 4500 lumens. I'm assuming the new Betty-R is as well putting it five watts more over last years 40 watt Betty-R. So yes even though the new leds are more efficient, max output is higher and should draw more from the battery's. Keep in mind Lupine has resolved the run times by having more capacity in this years battery's so run times should be as good.

I also suppose the new betty R will run with 45W same as the Betty Torchlight 2, so there is a wattage increase indeed, thus more battery drain.

On the other hand there is also an increase of the efficiency. The new Piko with 1200 lumen is quite remarkable. Still running with 13W, same as the old version with 900 lumen.
Improvement of 33% in lumen output in this case is done with better leds XM-L2, as well as with improvements in the electronic parts, and also with the leds fixed directly on a copper board.

It looks like lupine has improved their electronics across the board as their whole line up of products are pushing 100 ansi lumens per watt. They probably could have done that earlier but dealing with all the heat in such a line up of compact lamps is a difficult task.

i would also like the button on the piko to be on the side - otherwise when i press it it tends to change the angle of the light.

A 1500 lumen Piko-R would be a killer helmet light. Unfortunately not only do I think it would require a larger lamp head to accommodate the heat and electronics for the remote, but probably would double the price. Still would be an amazing set up though.

they're getting 600 lumen per LED in the Wilma but only 450 per LED in the piko. therefore a 1200 Lumen Piko is certainly possible. frankly i was hoping to see it by now since the 900 Lumen Piko is old now.

they're getting 600 lumen per LED in the Wilma but only 450 per LED in the piko. therefore a 1200 Lumen Piko is certainly possible. frankly i was hoping to see it by now since the 900 Lumen Piko is old now.

Not only is a 1200 lumen Piko possible,,, Its a done deal. As well as a 2800 lumen Wilma, and 4500 lumen Betty_R. Just check CHnuschti's post on this page as he has links to all the new Lupine products. Cheers!!!

Mentionable is that the new torchlight obviously has a special front ring with an outer thread, where you can screw on filters, diffusors etc.. However it seems that for instance such diffusors are not offered by Lupine itself. I guess the size of this threaded ring must be of some standardized size/type, allowing to mount third party diffusors.
I guess the coming new Betty R will also have this system or offers that as an option. This is suggesting Lupine at least took the topic "lens etc." into consideration.

Lupine has finally concretized his offer for upgrades; in most cases, the lamp/flashlight must be sent to the factory. Cannot say how this will be handled in outer Europe, has to be inquired:Upgrade 2013
Forum thread about this theme (german): ? Thema anzeigen - Upgrade 2013 ; for question/clarifications, write an email to the address as stated in the first post of the thread.
Notes: Piko upgrade can obviously be applied to all previous models; Betty R upgrade applicable only on the previous Betty R model; Wilma upgrade is do-it-yourself, as far as I understand applicable on ALL Wilma with internal switch, so even on the older models with 17W

regards

EDIT: there will be an upgrade also for the Wilma CL (Wilmas with external switch), not in the shop yet.

Wilma upgrade is do-it-yourself, as far as I understand applicable on ALL Wilma with internal switch, so even on the older models with 17W

regards

EDIT: there will be an upgrade also for the Wilma CL (Wilmas with external switch), not in the shop yet.

The upgrade is now available for Wilma-CL as well.

I was about to sell my Wilma-CL and get a L&M TAZ with a much better beam pattern (no external switch there :-(), but this upgrade got me thinking. I'm currently running the previous upgrade which is about 1000 lumens and has 22 degree lens: the light output is fine, it's just a bit narrow as I use it handlebar mounted.

But this new upgrade has a 26 degree lens - I wonder if it's noticeably wider than before. Cost is 80 EUR - should be worth it if it's wide enough - don't care too much about the extra lumens...

Lupine has put online a new beamshot comparison, where there is to note that also many older/previous models (Like Betty 26W, Tesla etc.) were included. Not complete yet, some more older models to come ...Lupine Lighting Systems - Dimmlevels

As for the upgrade for the older Betty 26W etc. don't know, nothing was said so far, I would write an email as stated in the previous posting and ask.

@ radirpok
A german guy made an extensive comparison, also with the Wilma 19W 22° and 26° :? Thema anzeigen - Unser Leuchtvergleich 2011 ; scroll down, there are 2 comparisons on Wilma "level".
Does not look for a noticeable improvement with the wider beam IMO, however.

Yep, thanks for the link, I've known about these beamshots, but checking them again... sad ;-(
However, photos may not always tell you the whole truth. If you check the Betty 26 beamshots, the light spill is quite noticeable, much better than the Wilma 26, even though the lens have the same specifications.
I had a Betty 22 (the 1850 lumen version), and even though the photos don't show much spill in real life it was almost perfect. I wish we had the same lens for the Wilma...

I've reconsidered the linked beamshots. I think the Wilma 19W 22 and 26 degree pics are somewhat misleading.
They aim too much into direction of "infinity", so they do not reflect well the changes in the near field in front of the wheel.
I suggest you download the images into the same directory, and then switch through them instantly with the mousewheel. The freeware IrfanView offers this feature, once you opened one picture, other viewers also offer this feature. Then you will recognize there is indeed quite a difference between 22 and 26 degrees (more than you recognize if you compare the two pics side by side), as it is reflected better with the Betty 26W pics.
The new actual gear (so also the upgrades 2013) of Lupine has a kind of slightly improved lens (the commercial says "collimated lens technology", huh?), but I don't think there is much difference in the beam distribution compared to the 2011 gear.

last year i had Lupine Piko 3 helmet light and now i have Light & Motion Seca 1700. the Seca is 10 times better - i'm really glad i sent Piko back to the store.

the Piko is $330 and my Seca was $319.

now, if i could afford 3600 Lumen Betty or 4500 Lumen Betty i would certainly take it over the 1700 Lumen Seca, but without a significant difference in Lumens i would prefer the Seca.

the optics used by Lupine are good for making a powerful light compact, but they cannot match the beam shaping ability of properly designed reflectors.

by using optics instead of reflectors Lupine is able to produce a 7 x XML2 4500 Lumen light that is not much bigger than a single XML light from companies like MagicShine which use reflectors and maybe put out 500 Lumens. so i'm not trashing optics based lights - just pointing out that their compactness doesn't come for free.

the Piko only took up about 1/5th the space on my helmet as compared to Seca, while delivering 50% the light output - you just have to decide what your priorities are.

Lupine is still the way to go if you either want maximum Lumens on your helmet, or if you want minimum size and weight on your helmet. However the Seca 1700 beam pattern is unmatched.

Now i wouldn't assume that Taz would be just as good - my guess is it wouldn't be. Because i tried both Seca 1400 and 1700 and between the two the pattern was very different. The 1700 pattern is 4X better. the 1400 has a tiny super bright hot spot in the center that ruined everything when pointed down, and was lost into infinity when pointed straight ahead. while the 1700 has a perfect hot spot that is equally useful when you point the light on the ground and when you aim it down the road.

from the beam shots i saw the Taz beam isn't as smooth as Seca's. but that will depend on how you use the light. maybe for you it won't matter.

i think the Lupine pattern could be great for certain types of use. i should qualify what i said before - the Lupine pattern isn't so much "bad" as it's not optimized for MY use, while the Seca's is. i'm sure there are scenarios in which Lupine's pattern is infinitely better than Seca's.

I just made up my mind and sent the order for an upgrade kit. This being the cheapest and simplest solution - I decided to give Lupine one more chance. The other reason is that L&M lights are hard to come by on this side of the pond, and customer support - should anything go wrong - is difficult, while Lupine is first class (a round-trip is within a week in the EU, vs. at least a month + customs from the US).